Richard Prince is not the only downtown New York artist who has been party to a recent copyright/intellectual property litigation. But unlike Prince - who was on the losing end of a decision (currently under appeal) regarding the fair use of photographs appropriated in his "Canal Zone" paintings - Talking Heads frontman David Byrne favorably settled a lawsuit in which he was the aggrieved party for the unlicensed use of the song "Road to Nowhere" in a political campaign.

Taiwanese TV broadcasts often contain digitally animated re-stagings that summarize events from around the world. Are they attempting to gestate a new art form? Possibly. But more likely it's cheaper to have a computer geek create the images rather than shooting and/or editing actual footage from the scene, or paying for the feed of an international news service (China vs. that nagging intellectual property issue again!). Previous coverage has run the gamut from political demagogues (Sarah Palin) to celebrity culture (Lindsay Lohan), as well as British budget worries (the Queen sells her swans for meat) and the Philippine hostage crisis.

Here is their take on the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy, which combines certain clueless errors (is that REALLY where New York City is - right in the center of the state?) with weird cultural mash-ups conflating campy 1960s beach bunny films and fundamentalist Islamic dress codes for women ("Burkini Blanket Bingo"). The risibly expedient shop names - "Greg's Ground Zero Gay Bar", "Ground Zero Starbucks", "Ground Zero Deli" - lampoon (perhaps unintentionally) the reductive "hallowed ground" blinders of the anti-Muslim fear mongers.

Many artists have created games to satisfy their aesthetic and political longings, Duchamp a prime example. Then there is the singular case of Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976), painter, installation artist, poet, critic, creator of happenings, co-conspirator with Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Kluver. Within a very varied body of work, he produced several world political paintings with movable magnetic elements in the early 1970s, modeled after the famous Monopoly game board, dealing with the Vietnam War and with the global realpolitik of emerging nations in the Third World.

From our friends at Pirate Cinema, Oil of the 21st Century and the League of Noble Peers, here's the final release of "Steal This Film, Part 2":

http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/

download.
pass it on.
show it in your classroom.

w

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A List of Quasi Things

A workshop about the development of a mapping tool for a list of quasi things. Kobe Matthys of Agency invites Peggy Pierrot and Philippe Rivière.

Saturday, December 8, 2007, 3 pm - 8 pm: Workshop
Saturday, December 8, 2007, 9 pm - late: Bar
Sunday, December 9, 2007, 3 pm - 8 pm: Workshop

Wiederaufbau für Kreditanstalt
Mauerstraße 68, Ecke Leipziger